Australian Bushfires – Donate Housing via bushfirehousing.org
Hi there,
As you may know Victoria has been hit with horrific bushfires in the last week. Since the mercury went soaring on Saturday to 46 degrees and beyond, fires have been raging out of control in bush in Victoria. A drought 10 years in length combined with a string of record temperature days has resulted (with the help of arsonists – damn every last one of them to hell) in massive destruction. Whole towns have been razed and the death toll is nearing 200 with no signs of slowing down. Worse still the fires are still burning in some areas and may join up again to try to repeat the devastation visited upon Kinglake, Strathewen, Flowerdale, Marysville etc.
While there are hundreds dead, there are scores of people homeless and in need of shelter. The lovely Jonathan Poh [http://www.jonathanpoh.com/] (@jpoh [http://twitter.com/jpoh/] ) came to work yesterday and suggested that we build a site much like the one used for Hurricane Katrina to help link people willing to donate accommodation to those evacuated residents requiring shelter. A group of us including Gil
[http://flamingmongrel.net/] (@gilfer [http://twitter.com/gilfer/]), Dimitry, Becky, Ben [http://www.benbalbo.com], Andrew and myself resolved that we would build the site and launch it as soon as possible to assist in the relief effort.
And so within 16 working hours we have a working site capable to connection people in need with people who can help them. I thought my job was good for nothing. It is nice to know that I work with people who are capable of pulling something of this magnitude off. They are superstars, each and every one!
Our site – www.bushfirehousing.org has now been released – in its first iteration.
Please be upstanding for Bushfire Housing [http://bushfirehousing.org/], an online tool to facilitate the pairing of those that are homeless due to the Australian bushfires with those
that have room in their house, a vacant rental, newly purchased investment property or holiday home they wish to offer as temporary accomodation.
We Need Your Help
This site isn’t going to work if no-one knows about it, so please tell everyone you know. If you can help, please sign up and list yourself. Go viral – post this on Twitter and Identi.ca, write a blog
post, set your LinkedIn and Facebook statuses. Call your local talk back radio show. Email your friends and colleagues. Add a Bushfire Housing badge to your blog and company web sites.
Have you got an idea of how to spread the word? Let me know in the comments of my blog – www.dandabelle.com.
What’s In Store For The Site?
We wrote the whole site in about 8 hours and have spent the last 6 hours working on minor bug fixes and UI updates. Given the nature of the site, we’re working extreme agile; ideally having multiple
release cycles per day.
Stuff for phase two includes SMS notification, Google map integration and more. If you have any suggestions or feedback, leave a comment.
Thanks in advance for your support,
Danielle
Thanks to Ben Balbo for drafting a large component of this post!
No Need to Catastrophise!
Except when there is…Forecast for Saturday is a scorching 43 degrees! So my party is moving to Sunday 8th of Feb which the forecast says will be a much more manageable 25 degrees.
Are 40+ degree days a sign of the end of the world. A god I don’t believe in seems to want to fry me up and make me a crispy critter!
Even more disturbing is that this is probably climate change/global warming related…what has previously only been concerning is quickly ratcheting up to scary.
Oh well…change of date. I hope that I will still see you there 
Croquet & Garden Party
Please join me in celebrating my 35th birthday on Saturday 7th of February Sunday 8th of February with a garden party and a game of croquet at Kew Croquet Club, 440 High St Kew.
I will be providing a lovely afternoon tea of cocktails, finger sandwiches and cake to refresh guests after their battles on the croquet pitch. Partners, are of course, welcome.
Your best garden party attire is requested (whites, boaters, parasols and hats are all encouraged).
Heels of any kind are not allowed on the pitch so please wear flat shoes or bring some along to change into. Bare feet are also permitted during play.
The clubhouse is fully air-conditioned for your comfort if the day decides to be very hot (less play more drinks and nibbles).
A modest fee of $10 will apply per person for those who would like to play.
I would love to see you all there. I hope you can make it. Please RSVP to me by Wednesday 4th of February to let me know if you can make it.
Adventures in TV
Having a break from work yielded some seriously welcomed time for TV watching – not the dreck on daytime television, but an opportunity to watch all the stuff I have downloaded in the past few months and not got around to watching.
First up – Mad Men.
Mad Men Cast Photo
This show is seriously terrific. Set in the 1960’s Mad Men tells the story of some advertising executives in New York (traditionally all ad agencies were located on Madison Avenue – hence ‘Mad Men’) and their families. What makes this series distinctive is that it is peopled with characters who while they are not particularly likeable they are authentic people with fears and hopes and desires. It is also unflinching in its portrayal of the sexual politics of the time – and boy am I glad that I grew up with the advantages that were denied the female characters on this show. However the show does do a great job of giving equal airtime to the issues of both women and men.
Mad Men - what seethes beneath the surface at the agency and in the home?
Mad Men is so lushly set decorated and filmed that it looks like an ad brought to life complete with saturated colours, perfect hair and immaculate white teeth. Its a joy visually – so beautifully art directed and with such fabulous costumes that even if I hated every character I would still want to watch it. A is not a fan because he thinks all the characters are awful people – and it is true that each character is not wholly likeable but I don’t have a problem with that. It makes for more intriguing viewing. I highly recommend adding this series to your DVD wish list (or torrent queue).
Who’s on Second? – True Blood
True Blood - Sookie and Bill
Alan Ball distinguished himself in the minds of all right thinking people with his show Six Feet Under. Even though the show started to get creaky in the latter stages of its evolution, Six Feet Under was ahead of its time in terms of subject matter, the quality of the writing and its production values. The last episode showing the deaths of all the main characters is guaranteed to make me tear up – especially as we get to see Claire depart this earthly realm last of all, surrounded by her photos and having lived a long, long life. Its also the episode with one of the most sage pieces of advice ever uttered – “you can’t take a picture of this, it’s already gone”.
Ahh…I digress. Anyway, The accomplished Mr Alan Ball is now producing a new show called True Blood. It doesn’t quite have the pedigree of Six Feet Under, nonetheless it is quite a good show, which I managed to gobble up in a week. True Blood is set in the south and is a tale of modern day vampires (and possibly other creatures) with a bit of Southern Gothic murder mystery thrown in for good measure. It is the story of Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in the small town of Bon Temps, who is a telepath and who can hear the thoughts of others. The twist in the tale is that 2 years previously the whole world found out that vampires were real and wanted to live in mainstream society – a desire made possible by the invention of a synthetic blood product called ‘Tru Blood’ which provides for all vampiric nutrition needs. Sookie is naturally sympathetic to the plight of vampires who are ‘outsiders’ like her and takes up with a vampire called Bill.
It doesn’t sound that promising, but trust me its pretty good. A little trashy, but the cast is good and the story clips along at a good pace so you won’t find yourself getting pissed off with the story arc a la Lost or Heroes. Anna Paquin is good as Sookie (though her accent is a little unreliable) and Australia’s own Ryan Kwanten (Hone and Away) is pretty good as her womanising brother (the producers get him naked a lot – and he’s not all that bad to look at either). The show is based on the Sookie Stackhouse series of books by Charlaine Harris. I can’t comment on the source material but my friend S says they are pretty good, and my friend M likes the show too. I would recommend True Blood for those in need of some light entertainment.
Third Base – Pushing Daisies
Pushing Daisies Cast Photo
This show defies description…well if course it can be described its just that if I attempted to (as I did at lunch the other day) you would think it sounded like the most impossibly twee and nonsensical show ever…and it is deliciously twee and at times lovably nonsensical which I why I love it. It stars Lee Pace (a total honey who has the misfortune of being in shows that get cancelled), Anna Friel (who is completely adorable and incredibly beautiful), the incomparable Ellen Greene, Swoozie Kurtz and Kristin Chenowyeth.
Pushing Daisies
The art direction is amazing and its a really smart, funky show…that was cancelled after a shortened 1st season (writers strike) and falling ratings in the second 13 episode season. As with most great TV its an overlooked jewel so check it out and fall in love like I I did.
Four to the Floor – The Mentalist
The Mentalist
Well this show is trash, total trash. It’s not even high quality trash but its eminently watchable and a bit addictive. Simon Baker (formerly Simon Baker Denny from E Street) is a consultant to the police who used to pass himself off as a psychic – really he’s just super observant and clever. The title is terrible but the stories are quite enjoyable and Simon Baker is fun as the main character, the titular ‘mentalist’. Its junk food TV and I would recommend it for anyone who is keen on a bit of mental downtime.
It also doesn’t hurt that just before Christmas we bought a big f**k off tv…that makes it infinitely more pleasurable to watch anything. I just have to recover from the epic buyers remorse it engendered before I can talk about it.
I am also about to order Breaking Bad, In Treatment and all 5 seasons of The Wire from Amazon. I’ll keep you posted on what I think about those.
Going Potty
So, to my surprise I have a thriving herb and vegetable garden in my teensy courtyard. The reason it is a surprise is that previously to this anomalous turn towards the verdant, the courtyard has been a pot plant graveyard. Amusingly A seemed to think that the stack of pots moldering in the yard were there when I moved in and told his dad as much the other evening on the phone. I had to correct him and confess that they were reliquaries for plants long since dead and that I had been responsible for the demise of each and every one. So you may be able to appreciate my pride and slight disbelief that I have pots of tomatoes 2 foot tall and starting to flower, pea vines complete with pea pods, lush lettuces, fat spring onions, frothy carrots and a pot of lovely leggy parsley, coriander and basil.
A few weeks ago this was all an expensive couple of hours at Bunnings. I gamely planted the seedlings and set up the worm farm and hoped for the best. Well, to be honest I did more than hope, I moved my ass and made sure that I watered the plants each day. The book about gardening in pots I ordered from Amazon was a great help – although as it is written by a US author all the plant varieties are referred to by common names that we don’t use here or are varieties we don’t have here.
The nascent garden has also encouraged me to start to save water. Previously I really had no reason to save water as I had no use for the overflow water or the grey water being produced in the household. Now I have buckets in the shower and in the kitchen sink and I can water all the plants from what is produced on a daily or next to daily basis. This is a relief as the state government is encouraging everyone to restrict their daily water use of 155 litres of water per person. If we cannot keep our water use down then we will move to stage 4 water restrictions which will mean no outside watering at all. So I am trying to ensure that I use waste water when I can – although having buckets in every sink can be a bit of a pain, but it is worth it in the end.
I like to be able to look out the lounge room window and see the green leafy foliage of the tomatoes and the other vegetables. I like growing practical things like herbs and vegies. I can’t wait until we actually get some tomatoes. The pea pods were exciting but I have bated breath for the arrival of the first tomato. I would like a large vegie patch at some point in the future, but for right now I am content to sit and tend to my pots and feed my worms.
Road Trip!
Sometimes a little shared madness is all you need to feel like you belong in this world. It was a Sunday and as is my wont I had a little case of the Sunday sads. Born from being bored and lazy and grief stricken that another full working week lay ahead, I was languishing on the sofa watching A play Far Cry 2, when K came online. Immediately both A and I messaged her, complaining of boredom and other ailments. After sharing our various news it was decided that rather than be bored and despairing alone we should endeavour to meet to languish on someone’s sofa, somewhere, together.
In the disjointed to and fro that is messaging I suggested (as a joke) that it was the perfect time to indulge our long held ambition to invade the pastoral idyll of Bendigo and avail ourselves of one of the last remaining Pizza Hut ‘all you can eat’ smorgasboards in the state. This was a road trip often mused over but not undertaken. In fact K and L had been hatching plans for it for quite a while before we muscled in on the territory. Recognising that we shared a special brand of insanity between us, K & L had floated the notion some weeks back. Much mirth was had planning the trip and reminiscing about the gastronomic apocalypse that the ‘all you can eat’ smorgasboard represented to us in our fondly remembered childhoods.
Thus a truly ill advised and completely wonderful plan was born. K & L would pick us up and we would embark upon a spontaneous road trip down the Hume to the gold rush town of Bendigo, whereupon we would relieve the locals of all their pizza and their soft serve icecream with sprinkles.
The open road is a wonderful thing. There is nothing like a road trip to break you out of fug. For one thing its a change of scenery, a brief respite from the well-trodden route from home to work and back again. The drive down the Hume is flat and the scenery, while nicely diverting on a boring Sunday afternoon, is not particularly spectacular. It takes at least 45 mins to clear the outer suburbs of Melbourne and start to see fields. This did not matter though as were were all content to chat and let the kilometers tick over. A & L are particularly well suited for a lengthy jaw session as they have some hobbies in common and seem to appreciate each others point of view on most topics K drove and I rode shotgun, chatting away and having a little giggle at A & L who, charmingly, were being total fanboys in the back seat. It was a pleasant, soothing trip, and brought home to me how similar we all were, as couples and as individuals. Its rather nice to be able to blather on in using your own lexicon and have someone basically understand you.
The drive took about 1hr 45min. The outskirts of Bendigo are typical small town stuff – not quite a built up and manky as the outskirts of Geelong – but with the same overall feel. Pizza Hut is on the edge of the town, but to get there we passed 2 Hungry Jacks, a KFC and a McDonalds as well as numerous shops and average looking houses…all standard fare. It was almost like we had travelled over an hour and a half past fields and cows and had somehow found more outer Melbourne suburbs. It felt distinctly Melton-esque. Feeling like kids we were excited to hear the GPS announce our imminent arrival.
Upon turning into the street where Pizza Hut was located I was delighted to see a true country cliche parked in the angle parking alongside our cheesy pizza mecca. A white ute all kitted out with roo spotters, bull bar, mudflaps with the silhouettes of naked women and 5 foot tall CB radio antennas with a behatted, skinny-jean wearing proto bogan in the front seat awaited us. Priceless. Our arrival time, 6pm, heralded the start of the dinner rush for Bendigo’s Pizza Hut’s. The small restaurant had a number of tables occupied already, and after a painfully slow payment process, we were ensconced in the first booth by the door, directly opposite the all you can eat bain-marie.
The dining room had obviously seen better days. In fact the whole Pizza Hut chain has seen better days really. It must be hard to compete in the pizza business where just about any corner pizza parlour is capable of producing better fare than what Pizza Hut can turn out in its production line kitchen at the hands of its 15 year old employees. However, we weren’t there for the decor. Nor were we there for the pizza really. We were there for The Works, that crappy, over salty, chemically laden, trough-dining experience complete with sneeze guard – and happily Bendigo’s Pizza Hut delivered beautifully.
In terms of people watching we were blessed with many categories of strange and scary to choose from. There was a table of people who seemed to only like to eat the first bite of any slice of pizza before discarding the remainder of the slice into a pile on the middle of their table. The amount of half chewed food they were leaving behind was amazing. They reminded me of wasps, except they were making their next from the leavings of pizza rather than chewed wood or paper. Then there was an enormously pregnant teenage girl, who on each foray to the pizza bain-marie managed to display a staggering amount of unattractive side boob. She was lank haired, slouchy and vaguely unwashed looking. It made my eyes burn.
The first thing we discovered was that sitting in a booth limited the ability of everyone to gain access to the food. Rookie mistake! The arrival of fresh pizza (well fresh anything really) triggered a rush on the bain-marie. With approx 8 slices per pizza there was much jousting for fresh fodder and it was surprising that there was no West Side Story style face off with pizza servers amongst the diners. The pizza’s consisted of a lot of melted cheese and not much else. Anything saucy (except tomato paste) was also well represented. Completely under represented were toppings like pepperoni, pineapple and anything vaguely resembling a vegetable. Strangely they were heavy on those tiny little meatball things which are nothing more than mechanically recovered nuggets of lips and tail. Bleh!
After 3 slices of pizza which all seemed to taste the same, I started to look for alternative combinations of food. The little salty discs of garlic bread were greatly improved by a scoop of the bolognese sauce and a dusting of parmesan cheese from the ’salad bar’. Said salad bar was a tiered arrangement of sad foodstuffs which had seen better days. There was pasta salad, coleslaw and potato salad all swimming in a bath of cheap mayonnaise and sad pots of other vegetables. Everthing that by genetics should have been brightly coloured and fresh looking was dispirited and grey tinged. You don’t eat ‘The Works’ for the sad vegetables though. A demonstrated this by ignoring the salad bar altogether and inventing the bolognese pizza sandwich – 2 slices of pizza with a scoop of bolognese sauce in the middle. Frightful but hilarious.
After 2 big glasses of soft drink and a couple of rounds of pizza jousting with the natives it was time to turn our attention to the dessert bar. Pizza Hut’s chocolate mouse is some kind of powdered chocolate evil. It looks like it should taste good, it looks like regular mousse, but in fact it is a gluey, tasteless glop. The jewel in Pizza Hut’s all you can eat crown has to be the soft serve ice cream with sprinkles. Awesome! You get to serve yourself as much as you can pile into the tiny plastic bowl and you can liberally douse the lot with as many multi-coloured sprinked as you like. If it had not been for the massive group of 14 year olds that invaded the restaurant and managed to break the ice cream machine, I would have had 2 servings.
Then like a fairy tale, the meal was over and the eaters remorse kicked in – right around the time the massive insulin dose hit and everyone felt like taking a nap. The drive home was delerious, with many complaints of growing food babies and diabeties. L drove and A rode shotgun (more fan boy geekery) while K and I relaxed in the back seat rubbing our bellies. It was a great, silly adventure and a wonderful antidote for the Sunday sads.
